Earth Equity News

A Distraction from the Decisions that Have to Be Made. By Emily Cross, NYTimes Dot Earth, 12/13/10. “Quite frankly, the ‘point’ of these meetings is to distract. Everything I attended this week, except the last day and evening, was a distraction from the decisions that need to be made to achieve a substantive and legally binding agreement to eliminate the emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases… The so-called Cancun Agreements are not nothing: in other words, the diplomats did agree, and decisions were made. However, the decisions made were not the difficult ones that need to be made, and the agreements made were essentially those of the pre-Copenhagen era. In doing so, the participants, having been so distracted and eager for the climax of ending of COP16, agreed to agree, thus pushing the real work for the next distracted climax of COP17." Emily Cross, a student from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, was one of many young people observing climate negotiations in Cancún, Mexico.